WL Gore is an amazing company which seems to continue to thrive in times good and bad.  Many things help explain this striking achievement not least what has been dubbed (by Director Magazine) its guide to management:

1. Belief in the individual. If you trust individuals and believe in them, they will be motivated to do what’s right for the company.
2. Power of small teams. They encourage fast decision-making, diverse perspectives and collaboration.
3. All in the same boat. Associate stick plan means all staff share in the risks and rewards. It gives incentives to contribute to the organisation’s success.
4. Long-term view. Investments are made for long-term success and fundamental beliefs never sacrificed for short-term profit.

I don’t know about you but I find much that inspires and challenges me in equal measure in these easy to understand (if difficult to implement) principles.

“What’s going on?” “Can we make this work?” “What do you think?” Three normal questions. Do we get honest answers? Jim Collins in Good to Great talks about facing the brutal facts; history tells us of lots of situations where groups working together failed to face the brutal facts - whether it be Hitler in the Führer bunker or airlines where the crew did not challenge each other with fatal consequences. The ability to gather all the information needed; to encourage the introverts to share, the nervous to be bolder and the reluctant to take some risks is a key leadership skill. Given the long term impact of many of the decisions we are making at the moment, leaders need the ability to ensure people are engaging in conversation, thinking things through robustly and challenging “group think”.

It is worth reflecting - next time you ask “can we make this work?” how do you get your colleagues fully engaged? How might you challenge them to raise their game in the next round of decision making?

‘Most managers look for golden opportunities when the good times are rolling. This is a mistake. The best ones often arise during downturns.’ So said Donald Sull, from Managing in a Downturn. Caret Consultant Tammy Tawadros recently wrote an article discussing how harnessing inquiry and capturing learning can often make the difference between an organisation that thrives and one that fails.

The current economic climate has left many organisations in the grip of huge anxiety and uncertainty about future survival. Many face grave external challenges. Internally, many are in a state of crisis. And crisis, like the proverbial cloud, carries within it the silver lining of opportunity. This is the kind of opportunity that can only be grasped and transformed into competitive advantage when there is space and the ability to think and learn collectively within the organisation. It is the very capacity that is diminished by crisis and the feelings of threat, danger and anxiety that it engenders.

It takes wise, humble and self-knowing leadership, with considerable ability, to enable the organisation to metabolise ‘toxic’ emotion, to resist overconfidence and the urgent call to action and, instead, to create the space to reflect and learn during crisis. Whilst it appears to be unfashionable still to talk about wisdom, the other qualities required by leaders at times of crisis have been well documented: humility and fierce resolve; psychological presence and personal authority; and emotional and social intelligence.

Just as each failure carries within it the germ of success, opportunities to learn abound at a time when so many leaders and organisations are in the grip of anxiety and uncertainty. But they are also, arguably, least able to harness them. Harnessing inquiry and capturing learning can often make the difference between an organisation that thrives and one that fails. During an economic downturn, successful leaders are likely to be those best able to capitalise on their personal humility and determination.

Click here to read the whole article

Caret consultants Rob Sykes and Sarah Wood bring a lot of practical wisdom to bear on the subject of commissioning in the following article, published earlier this year in the Municipal Journal.

At a recent workshop attended by a mix of agencies, a clear message rang out.

Even before the economic crisis bites, commissioners are struggling to deliver the radical change in services which will meet users’ and carers’ needs.

There seem to be two issues:

1. It has long-been recognised that providers and stakeholders should be involved with the process, not least because they have the most knowledge of current services and what is possible. However, we were shocked to hear that in at least one health community, there is an increasing reluctance among providers to co-operate unless there are guarantees about the outcome of the commissioning process.

2. The second is not new, but may become increasingly important. We heard of providers becoming more sophisticated at managing the political process to protect their position. It shouldn’t be a surprise that providers and stakeholders use the media and politicians - that’s democracy. The issue is, what should commissioners do about it?

Well, the first thing is to pay as much attention to decommissioning as to commissioning. You can have the best strategy in the world, but, if the first time you close a home to replace it with a community service, the media and political attention is such that you have to backtrack, the strategy will be lost.

As we move into a very difficult period for public spending, it has never been more important to have first-rate multi-agency commissioning, but in the past, commissioning has all too often been seen as a bureaucratic process which needs assessment, specification and procurement.

Commissioners will need to be robust at managing markets, ensuring providers are helped to change, and introducing new providers to stimulate innovation. In a world of individual budgets, they will recognise that new approaches to the market are required.

Most of all, they will recognise that commissioning is a deeply political process. It’s easy to involve politicians in developing and opening things - the real skill is working with politicians to manage the decommissioning process.

Click here to download the article as a pdf

“People are always for change in general and then they begin to worry about particulars“.  Those were the words of Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, in an interview about the health bill currently being debated in Congress.  She is right, both Republicans and Democrats agree something needs to be done but vehemently disagree on what should be done, how it should be done, and who should pay.  This seemed illustrative of the dynamics of recession-triggered change and transformation taking place in many organisations.  People tend to agree to something needs to happen but….

Leaders in organisations could benefit from taking a leaf out of the book of Dupont’s CEO, Ellen Kullman, who advocates four principles for moving ahead during turbulent times:

• Focus on what you can control
• Adopt a new trajectory by re-thinking your business model
• Communicate, communicate, communicate
• Maintain pride around your organisation’s mission

Kullman’s organisation employs 60,000 people in 70 countries so she decided to adopt the idea that:

“If you try to change everybody at once, you are changing nobody, so you really have to start in one area, or a couple of areas and show success”. 

The impact of her disciplined implementation of these principles can be measured in many ways, not least of which are employee engagement and financial metrics.  If you were to take a leaf out of her book what might that look like?  Or, maybe you are already doing so - in which case, tell us some of your stories.

One of the key characteristics of these times is an increase in uncertainty. Not surprisingly, the key thing that staff and other stakeholders are looking for from their leaders is an antidote to this uncertainty. The response of most leaders to this very human need is to put on their ‘superperson’ vests and gallop like the cavalry to the rescue, finding ways to reassure everyone that things will be fine and there is no need to worry. The unspoken assumption is that the leader should know all the answers and thereby be able to reduce the anxiety.

The problem is, not only that leaders do not have all the answers to the current crisis, but also that the very idea that they should creates an unhealthily dependent relationship. Blanket assurances from the leader either seem to lack credibility or merely pass anxiety from the staff back to the leader. Only the most confident leaders have the strength to be truly authentic and admit that they do not have all the answers, showing their vulnerability, their not knowing. In the words of Mother Theresa:

“Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.”

Those that do show their vulnerability create a whole different psychological contract with their staff. Instead of a parent-to-child relationship - “Don’t worry you can depend on me, I’ll sort it out” - you get an adult-to-adult relationship where the leader says, “I don’t have all the answers and we are in this together to make sense of these changes”.

Click here to download whole article as pdf

Voluntary groups come in all shapes and sizes from the large corporate organisations with prestigious offices and a national reputation to the small, local community, faith or voluntary organisation - often referred to as the third sector. The challenges remain constant - how do you get good performance out of people who do are volunteers - or have small salaries? How do you tap their expertise and passion to best effect?  In short how do you engage them?

Leaders in voluntary organisations have to spend a disproportionate amount of time on engaging their teams. Without this they can not deliver. RNIB have just completed a programme looking at values. They recognise that shared values give people the drive and motivation to come to work, and an ability to make a positive impact on other people’s lives can be a key driver of staff engagement.   They have identified six shared values and want to see them reflected at all levels in the organisation. (People Management magazine 26 February 2009)

In our experience many organisations in the voluntary sector have “assumed values”; there is lots of good will around but in reality the values are unclear and that lack of clarity can cause tension. Being deliberate about values has a huge impact on effectiveness. With clear values people know what is expected of them, standards can be encouraged, behaviour can be challenged, and people are energised to make a difference through what they do.

In Caret we practice what we preach and have been reviewing our own values - it is good to see what gets us excited about the work we do, what drives our commitment to go that extra mile, what unites us as a team. It may seem a strange time to be talking about values in a recession, but values give you a constant in times of great change. More than that they can give the energy and passion, and the determination to get through the current difficulties. One of our long established clients is St Basils who work with homeless young people - they will constantly ask how this decision impacts the lives of young people. This can impact the mundane admin as well as complex strategy - values make the difference for St Basils - and give them the determination and focus to succeed. It’s a determination that could make a real difference for all organisations in every sector.

Gary Neilson wrote a good article recently on the Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution. He argues that a lot of things get in the way of organisations turning ideas into action.  I think he has some very useful insights.

• Structural change is very tempting at times but it often ignores the root causes of an organisation’s weaknesses. 
• Poor decision making clogs up the organisational arteries. Do your decision making processes help to get things done, or do they slow them down?
  Is everyone clear about the decisions and actions they are accountable for, or are the guidelines unclear?
• Can key up-to-date information – market changes, customer concerns, finance worries – get through to the decision makers quickly bearing in mind that often decision makers are on the ‘front line’?
• Are decisions second guessed with people further up the hierarchy changing things? Where too many people vet decisions, accountability and commitment to get it right declines. When managers interfere with decisions they are in danger of undermining local experts and managing their own time unproductively.
• Does information flow freely or have you got silos? Do managers have enough information to make joined-up decisions?
• Do front-line managers have the information they need to understand the bottom line impact of their decisions?

I see some of these errors repeated in most of the organisations I work with, and I make some of them myself. In today’s climate, however, we need to be looking at unproductive behaviour, and some of these can be really expensive!